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Curious how many people are into competitive battling. It seems like a lot of you people are.

I've done it and I wasn't bad at it but it's not really my thing. Besides, my preference for cute Pokemon often screwed me over because a lot of good competitive battlers are the big, bad ass, awe-inspiring sorts and I never really liked Pokemon like that as much as I liked the cuties.

Okay, I'm rambling. How about it?

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I would make them some super cool and bad ass signature, but I have no idea what to put. Oops!

I don't mind having a few competitive battles every now and then. They're a lot different than in-game battles. In-game battles rarely make you think, but these do. These kind of battles make you think a lot. If you ever take a step towards the wrong direction and make some sort of a silly move, then the entire battle could be turned against your favor and your opponent would be gaining the upper hand. If you ever want to win in these matches, then you would always have to plan ahead and try your best to predict what your opponent is going to do next. d: It's like playing a game of chess, but only with Pokémon.

Competitive battling address many problems which casual battling doesn't: how to deal with broken/unfair mechanics, establishing a means to use weaker pokemon (tiers), and it's easier to find people who are of your skill level.

Things I prefer about casual battling: You can use whatever pokemon you befriended on your journey without obsessing over having the perfect everything. Using an outclassed pokemon isn't a bad thing. Things are a lot less predictable.

Even though I like casual battling more, I rarely do it because, when I do find people to play against, the levels of skill are too great. It's hard to know the skill level of your opponents. Some casual players use random story mode stuff with redundant movesets, such as the guy I played who had both Thunderbolt and Thunder on his set. Some casual players use teams full of legendaries, with thought-out movesets and multiple copies of leftovers... yet have casual natures/IVs.

I used to do a lot of competitive battling. I once spent a whole summer (or at least a large portion of it) just to learn and teach myself about it. The last time I battled like that was right before Black/White came out. It was Pokemon Online, and I wanted to play with the new Pokemon (for the record, I liked Volt Turn teams before it was cool XD).

If you asked me about today's meta, I'd tell you, "Gee, that's a good question!". I've been out of it so long. Unfortunately, I lost almost every Pokemon game I had that mattered (the games with all my usable Pokemon and the ones with move tutors). All I have is a team I scrapped together on my Black 2 that I intended to use at my local hobby store. It's kind of all right, but even I know it could be better.

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Yo, isn't Finneon an Eevee evolution? I mean, it has -eon in the name...

I've recently this year started competitive battling on the battle server, thanks to Nica/Forever. I got into it quite easily as I already had a thing for battling thanks to the games. I find it really fun and challenging as in each and every battle, one never knows what to expect. During one battle you could be on the winning side but during another you could find yourself left with your last Pokemon while your opponent still has a full team. It includes a lot of strategies that make you actually think, which makes it great overall. :D

Yeah, some times. It doesn't suit me since I suck, but I try at Pokémon Showdown and keep doing randbats till night time. A good way of stress relief in a day before the exams, I tell you. I'm not competitively inclined; I could never make any OU or NU or whatev team if the world's life depended on it. I'm not trying to be good at it, either. I just do whatever it takes to get myself satisfied.

I like battling, its pretty fun, but im not too much into it. I got other games i play competitively. I always battle on the Showdown server when people challenge me, but that doesnt happen often though :(

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One of these days I'll be gone
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Competitive battling is definitely fun. I urge people who haven't tried it to at least give it at go. I remember when I first joined the battle server and I knew nothing of competitive battling at the time, only wishing that I had knew as much as the others that were there, did. But I just kinda went into it, and that's how I learned, if that made any sort of sense, haha.

It's best to just jump into it headfirst. You're going to make mistakes, but no one is perfect, after all. We all have our embarrassing moments in competitive when we start out, and I'm honestly no different. Now I absolutely love competitive battling, partaking in various tiers such as Ubers, OU, UU, maybe NU, LC, and also Tier Shift and VGC 2013 (well it's a VGC team, but I think it's better used for Smogon Doubles). So yeah, you can definitely say I have a heart for it, and I love to learn more about the latter tiers as I progress~!

I did for awhile a few years back. Like Twilight Sky, I just sort of jumped into it with no knowledge about it whatsoever. Suffice to say, I lost a lot of battles but learned just as much along the way. What had seemed confusing to me before, started to make sense and became easier to do. Before I knew it, I was strategizing teams, EV training, and breeding Pokémon like a madman making sure I got things just right. I also started trading a lot more and watching a ton of competitive Wi-Fi battles on Youtube.

Eventually though, I just grew tired of it and bored. Competitive battling started to become nothing more than rinse and repeat with people. The Pokémon used were less of a surprise since almost everyone used the same Pokémon for it.

So that's when I just took a break and tried, emphasis on tried, to focus my attention on using my newly acquired competitive skills for the Battle Frontier challenge. At least here I could expand the variety of Pokémon I could choose from. It was fun for awhile, but then I got bored of doing that too. Haha.

I guess I could say competitive battling just isn't my thing anymore. Although, I do like that Gen VI should certainly change the rules of the meta game for people. I, however, just don't see myself getting back into it again. However, I don't plan on letting the skills I learned go to waste in-game. It's certainly helped me become a better player overall and for anyone who hasn't ate east tried competitive battling, I'd urge them to give it a shot. It doesn't take too long to learn the ropes of the meta game.

I did Shoddy in gen IV, but that's really the only time I was ever somewhat active in it. I don't battle competitively anymore, but I do try to keep up with the news and such and I try to have at least one competitive team in my game on the off chance someone wants to battle me irl. I also make sure my RNGed Pokemon are competitively viable.

I used to. the summer after B/W's release,I was a Fighting type gym leader for another forum. half of my pokemon had to be fighting types,so it made me think a bit about the team comp. now i don't,so I take up challenges for the most part. :p

I did competitive battling back in the GSC days. Then I gave up on it because you can't really use your favorites in competitive battle, not even with the tier system, because my teams span across all tiers and if I want to use something in OU (which is really a "standard" tier rather than a tier based on usage) then there's something better that I don't like as much. I sorta play Pokémon for RPG reasons still.

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Omega Ruby & Alpha Sapphire, the day Pokémon pulled a Dallas and jumped the shark.

I've tried it, but it's not my thing. I'm not exactly suited for competitive battling as you can tell by my signature...

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I don't use "uber" Pokémon, I don't calculate stat values, I don't use cheating devices, I don't breed my way to perfection, and I don't care about natures. I catch my Pokemon the way they are, and treat them like individuals instead of brainless drones. If you use this philosophy, copy & paste this into your signature.

Never did, never will. Mainly because my team is always a mix of Pokémon from different tiers, so it's always hard to win with your favorites...
Though I tried an online battle simulator & I still use it sometimes, usually played random battles.

I like it in small doses. After all testing how good you are to different trainers around the world is the whole idea of Pokemon I think. However, that said I didn't really like how mathematical it got towards the end of gen 4, so I'm glad new things are being thrown in here and there in the new gens, like new types, abilities & forms. Mega evolutions would be interesting competitively. The more factors there are to think about, the more skill it actually takes to win, rather than just working out the highest base stats and the most used pokemon around and building your team based on that. The more depth the better! I definitely think gen 6 will redefine competitive battling to an extent.

I do! I battle on PC's battle server quite a bit and I really enjoy it. I am not the best at it by any means, but I feel as if I have a good understanding of how things work. Ideally I'd like to learn more and get better at it which is what I plan to do upon the release of X&Y. I am excited to see the changes that the new generation brings to the competitive field.

I like battling other players over Wifi, but the choice items are really cheap and frustrating. I just wish people would battle normally using actual Pokemon Knowledge and Skill. Makes me understand why Gen one'ers exist.

Outside of official online tournaments (where I average a 5w/1L ratio), not really. I don't spend much time on it outside of those tournaments. I prefer competitive games with a focus on teamwork and skill, not skill and dice rolls. So competitive Pokemon tends to be one of my last choices for spending free time. If Wi-Fi multi-battles were a thing, I'd probably be way into that. Hopefully XY brings some exciting changes like that (and a metagame not dominated by genies would be lovely too).

Edit: I've played about 8 matches since I made this post, (with 3 people leaving cause they lost and 2 more left cause their lead matchups sucked) another reason I don't battle much. But XY will fix this, so...yeah.

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